


Imagine Charles reading your mind and discovering your suicidal thoughts

by forestofmyown



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Consent Issues, Depression, F/M, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mind Reading, Other, Reader-Insert, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-02 08:13:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4052926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forestofmyown/pseuds/forestofmyown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally posted on tumblr:  http://forestofmyown.tumblr.com/post/119834495294/maybe</p><p>TRIGGER WARNING for suicidal thoughts. If you are struggling with depression, please seek assistance (I have a tab of emergency links on my blog’s sidebar if you need help finding someone to contact about these issues).</p>
    </blockquote>





	Imagine Charles reading your mind and discovering your suicidal thoughts

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr: http://forestofmyown.tumblr.com/post/119834495294/maybe
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING for suicidal thoughts. If you are struggling with depression, please seek assistance (I have a tab of emergency links on my blog’s sidebar if you need help finding someone to contact about these issues).

“Y/N?” 

“Hm?” You mumble lazily, letting your head fall to the side to see who’s approached you. Staring at the ceiling hadn’t been very productive, after all. Yet you still felt the overwhelming desire to get back to it, as you had been for the past half and hour, and only barely managed to suppress a glare at the person who’d interrupted you.

It’s Charles. He’s smiling, but it looks like a rather painful process. It doesn’t reach his eyes, and is stiff, like he’s trying to keep it in place too hard. "We need to talk.“

Cocking a brow, you shrug and pull yourself up into a sitting position, groaning slightly as your body aches in protest. The window seat hadn’t been all that comfortable. Why you’d chosen it when you weren’t even looking out the window was beyond you. It had just been the first logical place away from everyone else that you’d found to collapse in, in an empty room off the main hall. 

You’d picked it because you could hear when people were passing by, and keep up with whether any commotion was happening and you needed to get up. Charles had still managed to sneak up on you, though. Oh, well.

"What’s up?” You finally ask, rubbing your neck. It does little to southe the ache there. 

Charles seems to flounder awkwardly for a moment, biting his lip, before he pulls up a chair and sits down beside you, leaning forward to clasp his hands in his lap.  
“… looks serious.” You say, watching the way his eyes keep darting to you and away again, a little glossy. Why does he look like he’s in pain? "You okay?“

He laughs so hard and so suddenly it’s practically a snort. Despite that, he looks closer to tears than amusement, and you let your legs fall forward as you turn towards him, seriously concerned now.

"I should be asking you that.” He replies after a moment. His hand goes up to the bridge between he eyes, and he rubs there slowly.

“M'fine.” You say automatically, not really thinking about it. 

“No, you aren’t!” Charles snaps, looking up at you. His face is so harsh you recoil back a bit, hands clamping down on the window seat.

He bites his lip again, blinking rapidly. You don’t know what to say, what’s going on, but why does he look like he’s in so much pain? You keep wondering, panicking. What do I do? What’s wrong? How do I help?

He chuckles lowly then. "Y/N, you are … so kind.“

Your brow furrows; this doesn’t make sense. "Professor, what’s wrong?”

“You keep asking me the things I should be asking you.” He smiles, and you don’t know what you’ll do if those tears there actually fall. You can’t breathe. It hurts to watch him like this. "And I just don’t know what to say.“

"That’s my line.” 

He only shakes his head slowly. Silence starts to stretch out again, and you want so badly to say something, but what do you say when someone looks like they are hurting this bad?

“I could hear you.” Charles finally says. "Y/N, I was passing down the hallway, and I could … I wasn’t trying to, but I pick up on things sometimes—things I have my mind listen for, to protect the students, just in case—and I heard you. In your head.“

He meets your eyes again, and a tear escapes, racing down his cheek, and he repeats, voice cracking, ”I heard you.“

Oh. Well, that would explain it. 

You dart up from your seat and stomp across the room, racing to escape, but Charles is on his feet right after you, calling, "Wait, Y/N, please–”

“No!” You snap, whirling around, furious. "You don’t get to cry! You don’t get to invade my privacy, barge your way into my thoughts without my consent, and then come in here with all of your hurt and your pain! This isn’t about you, and don’t you dare do this to me! This is about my life!“

"I know, Y/N, I’m sorry–”

“I can have my thoughts, Charles! No matter what they are about, I can have my thoughts!”

“But I don’t want you to kill yourself!” He yells back, fists clenched, face drawn, tears still falling.

You glare right back. "That isn’t your choice. This is my life, my depression, my pain, and you don’t get to decide what I do with it.“

"I can help–”

“Then help.” You cut him off. "But this? This isn’t help. Stay out of my head unless I say you can be there. And don’t make this about you. Because that doesn’t make me want to stay any more than I already did—or didn’t, as the case may be.“

He takes a step back, runs a hand roughly through his hair, and deflates. "Then what do I do, Y/N? Please, tell me.”

You stare at him, silently, fuming, heart racing, knowing the moment the anger leaves—and it will leave, no matter how justifiable it is, becuase this is Charles, and you hurt him, and darn it, this is exactly what you hadn’t wanted to happen, you have to take care of yourself, you’re messed up enough without worrying about the pain you’re causing him—you’re going to cry. Or not cry. Feel nothing. Both prospects are terrifying, in a way that you dread the flip flop of pain and nothingness, which one will it be? "It’s not about what you can do. I can’t think about you right now. I have to think about me, because I’m the one in control of me. If you want to help, you have to figure out what to do on your own. But in the end, I am the one that makes this decision.“

"To die?” He sounds almost spiteful.

You want to hit him. You want to snear at him and laugh and tell him, yeah, maybe. It isn’t any of his business. Heck, it took him invading your head for him to even realize something was wrong, and this wasn’t the first time you’d thought about ending it.

Charles is apparently too worked up to wait for your answer. "Y/N, just—talk to me.“

Noncommittedly, you reply, "Maybe.”

He steps forward, raising a hand towards you, gesturing towards your head. "I can make things better–“

"Don’t you dare!” You shreik, backing up into the wall, as far from him as you can get. "Maybe you could change things in my head, make me think I’m happy, but it wouldn’t be real and it wouldn’t be me. So would you freaking listen to me for once and stay the heck out of my head!?“

He backs off, nodding over and over, hands at his sides. One shoots up to wipe his face before falling again.

"I’m sorry.” He chokes out. "I know I’m going about this all wrong and saying the wrong things, but I’m so scared, Y/N. I just don’t want to lose you. Please, whatever you need, please tell me.“

"If I knew what I needed, wouldn’t I be better right now?” You feel tired again, the anger starting to ebb. The window seat is looking appealing again; a quiet place to just sit and not think and not be and occasionally think about not being at all. Nothingness.

“Then … would you just—would you promise me something?”

Your eyes narrow again, anticipating some kind of well-meaning but ultimantly selfish and impossible request that’s only going to make things worse. That’s what usually happens. That’s why you don’t talk about it anymore.

He sees the wariness in your expression and hurries on. "Just … just come to to me, alright? If you ever want to hurt yourself or, or if you make a decision and—just, please, don’t leave without seeing me. I know this is your choice, but don’t make the decision alone. I know there are others out there who have gone through something similar, in some way, to what you are, and I swear to you, I will take the X-Jet and talk to every one of them if I have to, use Cerebro to find them, but I will not stop until I figure out how to support you in this.“

Promises. Promises.

The anger is gone. You can barely work up the energy to protest. "Stay out of their heads, too, Charles.”

“Whatever you want.”

That brings back a little spark. "That’s common decency, it isn’t about me. You aren’t God, Charles. Don’t use me or my pain as an excuse to act like it.“

Better off, your mind mumbles. Better off without you. You, causing this pain. You, making him want to march into other minds uninvited and invade peoples’ most intimate sufferings all in the name of helping you. Better off.  
If you’re dead, you don’t have to worry about any of that.

"I’m sorry,” he says, and his eyes are overflowing again, like he knows he’s said just the wrong thing, and you wonder if he’s in your head again, and the thought makes you so angry that you’re half tempted to throw the nearest wooden chair at him. "You’re right, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.“

You both stand there, chests heaving for different reasons, eyes locked. Laughter floats in from the hallways—Charles had left the door cracked. Footsteps pass without stopping.

"Please?” Charles repeats. "Please, promise me?“

"I promise.” You finally whisper, feeling defeated. Hopeless.

A smile flutters across his face, hopeful. You want to throw up.

You can’t depend on him for this. If you want to live, you have to make that decision for yourself. It’s your life. But a few days later, when things are particularly bleak, and kitchen knives are so easy to get a hold of—really, anyone could just walk in, pick one up, and leave without anyone ever noticing—you walk into Charles office and plop down in the seat in front of his desk. He’s on the phone, and stares at you oddly as you say nothing, and watch as it clicks in his face and he hangs up on his conversation and suddenly he’s in the floor at your feet, on his knees, hand on your leg, tentative, you think it’s not so bad not to go through this alone.

Even though you are alone. Even though he doesn’t understand. Still, it’s nice to talk. For him to listen. To stay out of your head and focus on your words, to stop trying to fix you and to just be there sometimes. It’s all a lot of people can do in these situations. Occasionally, it’s all you need. Not always. But it’s nice.

(You tell him about the kitchen knives. By the end of the week, the entire X-mansion has been what amounts to child proofed, much to everyone’s confusion. You actually smile. Maybe you won’t go just yet.)

(Maybe.)


End file.
